The Pharmaceutical Industry’s Commitment to Transparency

Disclosure of Transfers of Value (ToV) to Healthcare Professionals and Healthcare Organisations

The Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) values its relationship with healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations. We recognise that healthcare professionals’ experience and expertise play a vital part in informing the pharmaceutical industry’s work on new treatments for best patient care and outcomes. The shared ambition of IPHA member companies is to make available innovative treatments for patients under the direction of healthcare professionals. Given that today’s medical challenges are far more complex than before our member companies believe in connecting their own expertise and capabilities with those of healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations.

Connections between industry, healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations benefit all three and, most importantly, patients. This collaborative work has a profound and positive influence on the quality of patient treatment and the value of future research. In fact, our joint research and co-operation has not only helped develop life-saving medicines but also led to advancements in patient care and medical science.

Additionally, we believe that we have a duty to provide healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations with the latest information on our medicines to help them to make the best treatment recommendations to their patients. Healthcare professionals wish to stay informed about current and new medicines to provide patients with the best treatments and choice. In turn, they provide us with information on how to improve our medicines through ongoing feedback on how the medicines work in clinical settings.

As would be expected, it is important that interactions between our industry and healthcare professionals and organisations meet the high standards of integrity that patients, governments and other stakeholders expect. While such interactions are already highly regulated, in June 2013, and to provide additional transparency, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations’ (EFPIA) adopted a Disclosure Code regarding Transfers of Value to healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations for implementation in 2016. IPHA, as a member of EFPIA, changed its Code of Practice to reflect this additional transparency. Under this revised IPHA Code, summary details of how IPHA member companies engage with and support healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations through direct or indirect financial support, or ‘Transfers of Value’, have been made public on www.transferofvalue.ie since 1st July 2016.

In brief, this means that each IPHA member company and also some non-IPHA voluntary contributors provide an annual report that includes:

ToVs related to research and development;

Contributions to costs related to events;

Details of donations and grants;

Fees for services & consultancy.

The amounts reported are the total per annum for specific categories rather than individual amounts for each transaction. Generally, these are per healthcare organisation or healthcare professional. However, to adhere to data protection laws, healthcare professionals must give consent to the pharmaceutical company for individual named disclosure. In the absence of this consent, annual data is published here in aggregate form in respect of healthcare professionals who have not given consent to publish their names. In contrast, all annual ToVs to healthcare organisations are published on an individual organisation name basis, since agreements with organisations do not fall under the consent provisions of data protection legislation.

The first series of data, or central industry report, related to ToVs made in 2015. Subsequent annual reports will be published within six months of year end and will be publicly available for three years from the date of initial publication on www.transferofvalue.ie. Between those periods HCP data may need to be republished by the companies as a result of HCP consent changes and therefore HCP data within the central report may change. However, changes to the other data is not expected.

We believe that disclosing the financial aspect of industry support for healthcare professionals and healthcare organisations will help assure the public that they can trust their healthcare professionals to recommend treatments or administer appropriate care based solely on clinical evidence.

Queries/ Further Information

If you have any queries on disclosure amounts, companies etc. please contact the companies directly (contact details are provided on each company page). IPHA does not control or have any input individual company data.

Note that each Company is obliged to ensure that any Data which it uploads is accurate, complete and not misleading.
Additionally, for personal data:

each Company is required to make sure, prior to uploading, that it has obtained the consent of the individual whose personal data is being made public. However, if after the Company has uploaded personal data to the Central Report website, an individual withdraws their consent then IPHA guidance requires the Company to:

Delete the existing entry relating to that individual as soon as possible and at the latest, within 20 working days from receipt of notification; and

Upload the amended/corrected data via the Central Report website, making sure that the amended/corrected data is complete, accurate and not misleading.

that is found to be inaccurate, incorrect or misleading the legislation requires that the information be rectified or erased ‘as soon as may be’ and in any event not more than 40 days after the request has been given/sent to them.

If you seek any information on the scientific/regulatory aspects of the ToV initiative please contact rebeccacramp@ipha.ie.

Access Transfer of Value

To access the ToV for the selected company please review the Methodological Note first

Step 1:

Review the methodological note below, which specifically relates to the Transfer of Value disclosure that you are requesting access to:

Step 2

I confirm that I have read the above methodological note which specifically relates to the Transfer of Value disclosure that I am about to access